Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1887-10-10

IN RAINY weather; where ! had never
tired of seeing the ice boats dart
along when it lay under its wintry
mail-the river that now, in my grief
and trouble and WEAKNESS, flowed
past as calmly as if ] had never seen
it. How could it be so irresponsive,
rolling on, bright and strong and
steady, giving me back no sympathy
now in my sorrowful mood, giving
me even no vantage ground? For |
should have had to wade into it if l
had wanted to drown myself, Yes,
/ began to hate the river. ! began
to hate, too, these long, tiresome, mo-
tionless levels of the grass lands-oh,
so fiat, so monotonous, so low "One
is simply underground here" / said
to myself. "One has really not the
air to breathe. l become like those
slugs that live on the damp side of a
stone. | am under a stone myself.
Oh. for just a breath of air from
some point a little way up the sky -
l began to hate, l say, the long green
grass fields; and then / began to
hate the farm life. 1T is dull, sor-
did, base work, let them say what
they please" ! said, ''frOm the pitch
ing about of the barnvard muck to
the last results of it. 1t is all non
sense about it being the one noble oc-
cupation. So is the cooks then, too. -
And / hated the great cattle in the
yard, the smell of the frothing pals
of milk, the click of the stanchions,
. the cheese making, the butter pack
/ ing-everything that belonged to all
the dull round of farm duties.
/ There were furious storms that
winter. The snow fell as l never re-
membered it before. The drifts seem
ed to wall us in from all the world.
Sometimes Bryan and Thomas brought
word of the outside regions, of the
way people up the river were sleigh
riding over the tops Of fences, Of the
immense snow fall in the mountains,
and the fear of what would happen
in the spring if there should be an
early thaw. And / remembered some
words that Mark used to quote from
play he had seen; ''When this
snow melteth, there shall come a
flood" / didn't care how many
floods came.
And so, with storm after storm, the
winter wore away. March had come,
but without a sign of the winters
breaking, and then at last April loi-
tered on; and April suns began to
do their work; and gradually the
drifts of snow in the lanes and in the
fields began to settle. and to lessen
and melt and disappear. And Bry-
ant and Thomas had To talk of the
brooding hens and watch for the
breaking up Of the river, and discuss
the chances of the early rye and the
new calves and the hiring Of the
spring hands: and it was all empti-
ness. And one day it began to snow,
and the snow turned to rain, and il
rained that day and it rained i'm riv-
ers, and it rained the next, and it
rained till it had rained a week-a
long, dreary week that bade fair to
end only in a deluge. And on Satur-
day the sun came out warm and
when | looked, the crocuses bloomed
under the windows, and Thomas said
it was very likely the May flowers
were blooming in the woods, if any
could get at them, for roads were un-
der water, although the river was
still locked in by solid ice from shore
to shore. And late in the afternoon
of the second day of this sweet sun
shine and south wind las we sat there,
Jane and /, Maria ran in and said
there was water in the cellar, as much
as six inches.
"That is nothing" said /. -
should think there would be after
such melting of snow and such a
raining of torrents"
"It's more likely the land sucking
up the river, miss" said Maria. 1.-The /
river is raging full under it's ice coat, |
/ shouldn't wonder, and is letting it.
self out through the land" And as
she spoke there came a great shock
and thrill, a rumble, a roar, and
mighty burst of sound.
'Great mercy, miss - said Jane,
"the ice is cracking and rending from
shore to shore. j never heard the
like before, las many springs as have
lived beside it." and before she had
done speaking the sound came again
the sound of great guns, the trem-
bling of an earthquake.
''It is an earthbuake," said J.. sit
must be; but earthquakes up here
don't amount to anything"
''That's no earthquake, "cried Jane
And then we sat there an hour or
more, looking out on the river, and
listening to the sounds, and wonder
inc and telling stories Of earfbQuaLxee /
and hardships and what not, curdling
our blood az we talked. And at last
Thomas came in; he had been down
the lane to the highway, and a per-
son who had come from up country
had told him that the freshet was on
the river, and the high water had
carried away Ford's Mills, a dozen
miles away.
''But how can il do that| said /.